**”Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle in Embarrassing MotoGP Weekend”**

Disastrous Weekend for Aprilia, Disappointing Aragon MotoGP Performance

Aleix Espargaro ends the race 40 seconds behind Marc Marquez, while Maverick Vinales withdraws halfway through the event.

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales concluded Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon, trailing just behind Marc Marquez in the rankings.

Despite rain on both Friday and Saturday night, which left the area muddy, they struggled to cope.

At first, the significant gaps of 2.9 seconds for Espargaro and 3.7 seconds for Vinales behind Marquez’s pole position time during qualifying seemed like an unusual event.

However, the shortfall was evident in the Sprint race as Vinales ended up in 19th place, trailing behind Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which amounts to a gap of 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, couldn't make it past Turn 1. He experienced wheelspin on the less clean side of the grid and ended up making contact with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

Participating in his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish the race on Sunday, but ended up in tenth place, trailing Marquez by an “embarrassing” 40.6 seconds.

Espargaro expressed his frustration, saying, “I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to work, and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite humiliating. Once more, I struggled to stay on the bike, but at least we managed a top ten finish and earned some points.”

Espargaro admitted that they couldn't get the tires to perform properly. He said his main concern was preventing a crash rather than focusing on speed, and he even found it challenging to touch his knee to the ground.

“I wasn’t able to tilt the bike during turns. This was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, and it’s difficult to come to terms with. We need to understand what went wrong.”

Vinales faced even greater challenges as he fell to the last position right at the start of Sunday’s race. He stayed there, only ahead of Luca Marini who began from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race just before reaching the halfway mark.

The fastest lap recorded by the COTA winner was 2.7 seconds slower than Marquez's best lap.

"We struggled to get the tires functioning properly. It felt like I was on the verge of crashing at every corner, particularly with the rear tire," Vinales explained.

"The weekend turned out to be challenging for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything fell apart afterward."

The challenge of getting the tyres to perform on a difficult track – Marquez's race-winning time was 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years prior – seemed to echo past issues Aprilia has faced when using slick tyres in wet conditions. "A terrible weekend," said team boss Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite the low grip, but then we lost our momentum, finishing about four seconds off our best times."

"This poor showing should drive us to persist in our evaluation and improvement efforts as we approach the next set of races, beginning with Misano."

Trackhouse racer Miguel Oliveira, who finished fifth in the Sprint, faced a crash on the first lap of the grand prix, while his teammate Raul Fernandez ended up in 16th place due to a penalty for tyre pressure.

"Today was incredibly challenging," Fernandez remarked. "I'm not quite sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed to complete three laps with decent grip, though I did experience some tire graining afterward. However, today, the grip was entirely absent."

"I couldn't get any traction; it felt as though I was racing on ice the entire time, leading to many errors on my part."

“That race was among the toughest I've ever experienced… The silver lining is that all of us at Aprilia are encountering similar challenges. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate to find a solution.”

Another positive update for Aprilia is that the upcoming home round at Misano this weekend is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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